Deeplinks Blog posts about Copyright Trolls

Judges Increasingly Catching On to Copyright Trolls' Unfair Tactics

Life under the bridge is a bit less comfortable for copyright trolls these days, as a series of legal losses continues to undermine their misguided business model. Trolls make their money through variations on a simple scheme: file mass copyright lawsuits against thousands of people at once without regard for whether they're in the right court, get a judge to give them power to obtain identifying information for the anonymous “Does,” and then send settlement demand letters threatening to name these Does in a lawsuit if he or she doesn’t pay up. In many cases, troll lawsuits are based on allegations of downloading pornography, creating additional pressure to settle rather than risk the embarrassment of being publicly named as watching dirty movies online.

In February, we documented how a judge in the Northern District of Florida halted 27 copyright troll cases naming over 3,500 individuals to determine whether the copyright troll lawyer, TarikHashmi, initiated the cases while being unlicensed to practice law in Florida.

In response to the judge, Hashmi did not deny practicing without a license and instead tried to substitute a lawyer to continue the cases. This week, as noted in the Order attached below, the court not only dismissed the substitution, but also all of the cases.

Late Friday, the federal district court in Nevada issued a declaratory judgment that makes it harder for copyright holders to file lawsuits over excerpts of material and burden online forums and their users with nuisance lawsuits.

The judgment – part of the nuisance lawsuit avalanche started by copyright troll Righthaven – found that Democratic Underground did not infringe the copyright in a Las Vegas Review-Journal newspaper article when a user of the online political forum posted a five-sentence excerpt, with a link back to the newspaper's website.

Yesterday, the Northern District Court of Florida halted 27 copyright troll lawsuits targeting more than 3,500 Doe defendants while it examines whether the copyright trolls' lawyer, Tarik Hashmi of the Transnational Law Group, is properly allowed to practice law in Florida. The cases include copyright troll lawsuits Hashmi filed on behalf of, among others, Third Degree Films, Inc.; Patrick Collins, Inc.; and SBO Pictures, Inc.; (a full list can be found in the attached order). The cases were moving along rapidly until three Doe defendants called the court's attention to a Cease and Desist Affidavit that Hashmi submitted to the Florida State Bar in 2010. The affidavit stated Hashmi was not licensed to practice law in Florida and would not conduct legal actions until he was licensed by the state.

Mr. Hashmi has until March 9 to respond to the allegations. Any person who has been contacted about these suits should know that they have been stopped.

Proponents of the misguided Internet blacklist legislation — the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the PROTECT IP Act (PIPA) — downplay the idea that the overbroad bills could be used for censorship. But one only needs to look at the way existing copyright laws have been abused to know there’s serious cause for concern.